Why artist David Quadrini matters

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NAN COULTER/Special Contributor

David Quadrini in the current Passenger (reloaded) exhibition at Angstrom Gallery in Dallas. Photographed with Untitled, 2007 (rhino coating on canvas) by Olivier Mosset, left, and Sheetrock Brand Gypsum Panel (San San International Archive 32), 2012 (ink on Perspex mirror, unique) by Jonah Freeman, right, on May 1, 2012.

Who besides David Quadrini would ever think of the name “Angstrom” — one hundred-millionth of a centimeter, a measurement associated with radiation wavelengths — for an art gallery? When it opened in 1996 in a small space across Parry Avenue from Fair Park, few art lovers in Dallas had ever heard of David Quadrini, and knew of the location only because the established Eugene Binder Gallery was nearby. Within two years, Angstrom’s openings were the stuff of legend — and Dallas art-establishment stars such as collectors Howard Rachofsky, Betty Blake and Nancy O’Boyle, DMA curator Charlie Wylie and adviser Cindy Schwartz were rubbing shoulders in the packed space with cute boys and girls, artists, neighbors, new collectors and oddballs from New York and L.A. at openings that lasted well past midnight. And they came back over and over because there was one amazing exhibition after another: The likes of Erick Swenson, Jeff Elrod, Ludwig Schwarz, Susie Rosmarin and London artist Phyllida Barlow were seen alone and in dizzying combinations — until David decided in 2005 to decamp and move to America’s newest art capital, L.A., where he formed the wonderfully named but short-lived venture Q.E.D., with Elizabeth Dee, and found a place on Venice Beach.

David Quadrini is a Dallasite, an artist himself and probably the most important dealer/tastemaker in the last three decades in Dallas. Born in Rochester, New York, into a tight-knit Italian-American family, he moved with his parents to Dallas when his father was hired by Texas Instruments. David went to Catholic Schools, was never abused (much to his consternation) and came out an artist-entrepreneur in the best tradition. In some ways, he is the opposite of the equally important dealer/tastemaker Laura Carpenter, who, like David, changed the city’s taste in the 1980s and was, also like David, not a very successful businessperson. Yet, Laura started with social connections and family money, while David started with a wing and a prayer and kept right on going, because he had nothing to lose.

When Angstrom closed, many of us who regularly hung out in its back room went into quiet mourning. As one would suspect, his best artists were taken up by gallery owners Talley Dunn, Marty Walker and others in Dallas and by dealers in New York and L.A. But most of us “regulars” decided that we simply had to forget Angstrom: Where else in Dallas could one argue with internationally known art-world types such as critic Dave Hickey or his historian wife Libby Lumpkin or any number of David’s New York and L.A. friends — all while drinking cheap wine and looking at challenging contemporary art.

And then, suddenly and without warning, Angstrom reopened on April 27, in its original space at 3609 Parry Avenue, with a party that rivaled those of lore. The 20-artist exhibition, called “Passenger,” evokes all the years of Angstrom. But it also did — and hopefully does — something more: It challenges us just like the exhibitions did in the 1990s and early 2000s. Will Angstrom remain open? Will it become a series of Quadrini-curated “projects” designed not to compete with the wonderful Dallas dealers who took on his artists after his departure? Or will D.Q., as he is often called, fold the tents, pack them carefully away and unfurl them on the beach in Venice? Let us hope that Angstrom is here for a while longer and that the magic of D.Q. reinvigorates our town.

RICK BRETTELL is a Margaret McDermott Distinguished Chair at UT Dallas and the founder of CentralTrak, the UT Dallas artists residency.

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